we are making lists of what we pay attention to, writing them on our arms to remember: sad clowns breathing like fish, weeping circus rings — and shattered anorexic girls with contorted perceptions of what is beauty, what is woman — (we are overlooking euphoric martyrs and grinning working class) — and we are watching children sign missiles destined for children — and masked men with keys to paradise around their necks — (we are overlooking family dinners without television and the disgusted prostitutes closing their legs forever) a kingdom of animals! we said we are philosophers, philosophies, with rounded temperance and rounded handwriting, noting the motion of the predator, the sacrifice of the prey, the flash of divine interference for the moments when we are caught with mouths open (a boy is clutching the corners of his prayer rug and chirping in the fabric unanswerably — in the symmetry of a gray cathedral masses are speaking in clasped hands — incarnations are turning over temples searching) He is looking askance, lopsidedly expressive, smiling with one side of His mouth, leaning His head in His hands, winded ; He was mostly kidding when He said, "Earth is a joke," and we were mostly serious when we answered, "We'll be the butts."